


Candles Help in the Planning Process

by MillionDollarTeddyBear



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Clueless Lukas, Clueless Philip, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, M/M, Plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 00:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15498579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MillionDollarTeddyBear/pseuds/MillionDollarTeddyBear
Summary: Rose is tired of her two best friends, Philip and Lukas, skirting around the fact that they're very much in love with one another. So, she makes a plan to push the two into seeing they have heart eyes for one another."By now Rose thought that they'd spent too much avoiding the elephant, damn that, the Megalodon in the room"





	Candles Help in the Planning Process

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Semi_problematic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semi_problematic/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Just Philkas Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10415865) by [Semi_problematic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semi_problematic/pseuds/Semi_problematic). 



> This fic was made with some headcannons in mind that you can find in Chapter 10 (titled Rose Headcannons) in "Just Philkas Things", the super cute work filled with great and interesting headcannons for the show! :)
> 
> Hope you enjoy reading this fic!

Rose Simmons prided herself on many things. 

She was proud that she was an accomplished dancer. Ever since she was little and watched a recording of a "Nutcracker" performance, she'd been entranced by the art of ballet. After weeks of pleading to her parents they had agreed and enrolled her in classes in a ballet studio in Red Hook, and she'd been a trained dancer ever since. Now, at the age of twenty, she'd been dancing for about fifteen years, and was a beauty to behold when she performed,  an image of grace and poise instilled through hours of hard work, and she'd played The Sugar Plum fairy the last year she was at the Red Book Ballet Center, looking magical as she danced along to th celesta. 

She was also proud of raising her dog. An Airedale terrier that she named Carol, in honor of her late grandmother Caroline, that she had gotten as a pup on her fifteenth birthday. Rose had begged her mother and father to please, please, please let her have a dog, and they'd gifted the pup to her, albeit with the warning that she was going to be taking care of Carol and would be responsible in training her. She had spent much of that summer researching how to train a dog, and then applying her notebook pages full of notes jotted down to educating Carol, and goddamnit it she wasn't gleaming with joy with how well her girl was house-trained, when she'd bark at the door to be let outside, and how she'd even managed to teach her doggy some tricks. The crawl, the roll over and the dancing were quite adorable. 

She was proud of her academic career as well. Growing up she had high expectations placed upon her, with a father who worked in Poughkeepsie at the Vassar Hospital, a prominent cardiologist and cardiothoratic surgeon, and her mother living in Tivoli with her, a former beauty queen (crowned Miss New York 1985) turned equestrian extraordinaire and owning multiple horses on their large estate. Her mother's horses participated in races, were used in dressage competitions and were beautiful creatures, and everyone in Tivoli knew that Carmen Simmons (named for jazz goddess Carmen McRae) would be glad to allow children to host their birthday parties in their ranch with the horses, and that the woman would be delighted when offering the families to teach their kids how to ride a horse. 

Because of her parents always pushing her to succeed, she was always very intent on her schoolwork and her classes. Sure, she was a popular girl and while many in her position would coast along on a pretty face and daddy's surgeon salary until she "found a husband" (that's what one girl from her ballet studio had said was her plan in life, _ugh_ ), she would rather die and be found under a bridge than have that life. So, she studied hard, she joined the academic decathlon team and was runner up with her teammates at the National Championship, she took on heavy coursework, slayed her SATs (1590, take _that_ Rowan Campbell) and graduated as valedictorian (take **_that_** Rowan Campbell). 

Her ambition and her dedication is what landed her at Cornell, an Ivy League school where she was studying at the AAP, in the department of Architecture. She was on top of all her classes, had (after much insisting that she didn't need him to do so) allowed her father to pay for an apartment just some fifteen minutes away from the school, and could pride herself on having her life going well and stable. 

What Rose couldn't pride herself was on her ability to deal with bullshit.

Hence, her aggravation that her two closest friends, Lukas and Philip, couldn't get their shit together and admit that they were madly in love with one another. 

She'd known Lukas for ages, since they were little, and they'd been friends ever since. Rose could still remember her mother's numerous failed attempts at getting him to learn how to ride a horse, their playdates at his house in which they'd play at being a knight and a damsel in distress. They had even dated during high school, for some two years and a half, and it had been nice, their friendship translated well into a romance, but in the end they broke up, amicably, and Lukas had come out as gay. Rose hadn't been upset at him being gay, but at him feeling that he couldn't confide in her about it. They'd gotten over it though, and were still close as ever. 

He was studying at Cornell as well, entering their Mechanical Engineering undergrad at the College of Engineering. After a year staying at the dorms, she'd finally convinced him to come live with her, and they split the cost of the utilities. They worked as a good unit, and she had forced him to start being cleaner and neater, he did his own part too and tried to cook on many occasions, and even though sometimes the concoctions he'd come up with were not great, she still greatly appreciated the blond's efforts. 

Philip was, even if he'd loudly scoff at her if he knew she thought it, a darling. Artfully messy dark hair, a sweet smile, always wearing a lovely leather jacket that honestly made him look like some 90s heartthrob. 

He'd transferred for their sophomore year, having been studying Photography at Syracuse University and moving to Ithaca and joining the Visual Arts undergrad at Cornell. They had met one afternoon at a café, all the tables were occupied and so she'd approached a dark haired young man with askew glasses who was seated at a table in the corner pressed against the wall, actively working on something on his laptop. Rose had asked if she could sit with him and he'd nodded, albeit a bit vacantly since he seemed very into whatever he was working on. 

She'd been at the coffee shop for about an hour when she realized that the dark haired guy hadn't once looked up from his laptop screen. His eyes, a stormy gray color, looked tired, and she could tell from the bags under his eyes that he was probably fitting well into the archetype of the underslept uni student. So, she got up from her position at the table, said she'd be back in a moment after asking if he could watch over her things (he quickly nodded though his eyes didn't leave the screen), and then came back some minutes later with two iced hot chocolates and a couple of pastries and muffins. 

"Here, you look like you died last week", she'd said to him and passed the brunet one of the drinks and motioned for him to grab some of the baked goods. 

"Wh-what?", he'd sputtered out, frowning at her when he, finally, looked away from his laptop and looked at the coffee as if it was an offense. 

Rose, unable to pride herself of lollygagging (how was she going to be the next Peter Zumthor if she was wasting time?), just sighed: "Since I got here you haven't looked up once from your laptop, and you look like you could use some caloric intake and some caffeine to keep you going. Drink and eat, my friend". 

He didn't seem to like her spiel, though after about a minute of them just stating at one another he caved and brought the drink closer, slowly sipping from the straw. It was quiet between them for the following ten minutes or so, just him taking occasional sips of his drink and munching on a cookie while his gaze flirted between Rose and his laptop, and her silently reading a book she'd picked up on Lukas' recommendation  ("Oh wow, so you _read_ now?", she'd exclaimed in awe about a week ago, dodging a throw pillow aimed at her head). 

"Everyone in my class are such idiots and I'm fixing the mess they made of our group project", the brunet ended up explaining, blurting it out after a while of that silent ease. 

She'd laughed, sort of loudly, and had gladly allowed him to rant about his stupid teammates and how they ruined the project they'd done together. Turned out the guy, who introduced himself as Philip ("I don't really do nicknames but I mean, I you want to give me one then...sure, I guess"), was a visual arts major and had a particular love for photography. He'd done a lot of the actual photographing for the project, but two other classmates had insisted they'd do the editing on the pictures taken and when they sent them to Philip about two hours ago he'd nearly "fallen into a pain induced coma". 

"Look at this, you need to see this", he said, turning his laptop so she could see. First he showed her to original photograph, and it was an image that, honestly, was stunning, looked like it could belong on a glossy page of a magazine: a woman, dark haired, turned away from the camera in a way that played up the dimensions and beauty of her high cheekbones and strong jawline, wearing a coat that was slipping along her shoulder and revealing a lanky slip dress. The shadows playing along her figure were amazing, the long, mile long length of her legs. 

Though, whatever editing had gone into the second photo he showed her, it was surely a joke, because it was that godamned awful. It looked as if some beige filter had been put onto the picture and it looked blotchy, distorted slightly, and overall unappealing. Whereas Philip's original photograph looked like it would be perfect in the sheeny pages of a culture or fashion publication, the second image was very strange and seemed wonky and off kilter, and not in an interesting way.

"Looks like fucking _cival war_ bandages were used as a filter, can you believe it?", Philip had gruffly snarled as he shook his head in distaste.  

They'd been friends since that day, having exchanged numbers before Rose had left the coffee shop. Philip had been quick to text her throughout the rest of the day and then showed her how the picture had actually turned out: the shadows playing beautifully along the model, the angles perfectly defined, the light, the color, all of it looked amazing and Rose had said so. From then on they hung out, going to get coffee together, simply studying in silence with one another. 

By virtue of them being her two closest friends, Philip and Lukas had met about a month after she'd met the dark haired Shea man. The two had gotten along and soon they were a trio, a grouplet, and they hung out all the time, lounging around in the living room in Rose and Lukas' place, strewn about together on sofas and watching some t.v. show they'd been enraptured by, or they'd go out to a restaurant for dinner together. 

It had been a few months now since Rose had noticed that the two were totally in love. The furtive glances filled with longing that Lukas sent Philip when the dark haired man didn't wear his contacts and had on his glasses, the surreptitiously fond looks from Philip to Lukas when he'd be an utter idiot and be blanking on their conversations. She saw how Philip blushed pink, all the way to his neck, when Lukas complimented his photos, and the manner in which Lukas seemingly forgot how to breath when he'd finish at a motocross event and the first person to congratulate him was Philip, wrapping thin arms around his body in a tight hug. 

Rose thought that the situation, if presented as a plot in a romantic comedy starring Timothee Chalamet and some other upcoming actor (she had spent _way_ too much time imagining a film like that) would be quite cute, with fluffy scenes and a warm yet exasperating feeling of "just kiss already!". The Simmons girl would love to watch that movie, she'd get Philip to make them some virgin cocktails, they'd order some takeout and would assemble around the living room and laugh and coo at the screen. 

But the situation in real life? No, Rose didn't have the patience for that, not at all. 

Her patience with her two friends skirting around their blatant feelings was wearing thin, and even more with Lukas deciding that, sure, he was going to go out with some Tommy something guy with dark hair and who also liked wearing a leather jacket (coincidence? Obviously the **_fuck_** not) that was studying international relations. 

The anguished look on Philip's face whenever Lukas would come back from a date with Tommy made Rose want to grab her flaxen-haired friend and rattle him like a toy. She noticed that Lukas was also keen to Philip's reaction whenever he'd mention Tommy, or talk about a date they had the day before, and Rose wanted to groan out in exasperation at how obvious it was that the Waldenbeck man was going out with the other dark haired student to see if it made Philip jealous. 

Lukas had broken things up with Tommy some days ago and he'd announced it over Sunday morning breakfast in the kitchen. Rose, who was presiding over the toaster, didn't miss how the news basically lit Philip's face with a refreshing glow, and she barely refrained from rolling her eyes at the two. She noticed too, as she brushed some of her dark hair away from her face, that Lukas was intent on Philip when he'd revealed the news. 

By now, after time of being close, close friends, Philip was a staple at their shared apartment. He might as well move in, she thought at times considering how much time he spent there with them instead of in his dorm. She didn't blame him too much though, his roommate Ryan sounded like a scary and weird guy. Philip ended up spending evenings and nights at their places, crashing in the spare bedroom, and he was always present for Sunday morning breakfast. 

His face was positively glowing as he finished making French toast and he had a cheerier disposition for the rest of the day. 

By now Rose thought that they'd spent too much avoiding the elephant, damn that, the Megalodon in the room. The two were in love, they basically stared at each other with heart eyes and looked at one another adoringly and Rose thought that they would look Brad and Angelina level of gorgeous together. 

She wasn't really one for meddling, her mother had taught her better than that. But, her mother was some 150 miles away and she really was getting tired of the enamored looks shared between the two and how neither of them appeared to be going to make a move on the other before they were octogenarians. 

Her amazing organizational skills shone when she'd locked herself in her bedroom  ("Don't bother me or I'll burn your signed poster from Ryan Dungey", she'd warned Lukas that morning, smirking at his horrified expression) and began plotting ways to get her two closest friends together. Spreadsheets on Excel, digging through their year-long text conversations, making schedules and way too many lists, hours passed of her working on her "devious plan" (that's what she was calling it in her head) and she ended up lighting one of her "Fresh-Cut Gardenia" 3 wick candles from LAFCO that her mother always bought for her. The notes of gardenia, ylang ylang and cedar were beautiful and they helped fuel her scheming session. 

In the end, she was satisfied with her plan and, smiling widely as she looked at the array of pages and papers that she had on her desk, Rose was quite proud with her plan. 

 

_♢♢♢_

 

_"You're having dinner with me. I don't care what you have to say, you're dining with me, it's special, go to Jardins de Saint Lazare on Fidler at 7:30. Be there or face my wrath Shea, **BE THERE** "._

_"You're having dinner with me. I don't care what you have to say, you're dining with me, it's special, go to Jardins de Saint Lazare on Fidler at 6:45. Be there or face my wrath Waldenbeck, **BE THERE** "._

Those were the text messages that Rose sent Philip and Lukas respectively as she stepped through the doors of a coffee shop to grab her morning hot chocolate. It was going down that day, everything was set up and she could feel the excitement coursing through her veins, something that not even the barista writing down "Erosion" on her cup could put a damper on. 

Her day went by pretty quickly, even more with how her excitement was thrumming through her being. By the time the hour mentioned in the text messages rolled around she was already at the restaurant, seated in a corner, thanking the heavens that the antique lanterns that the restaurant had hanging over the tables served more an aesthetic purpose of giving that romantic candle-lit effulgence than actually being much of a light source. She didn't want her plan to be ruined by one of the two idiots seeing her before she wanted them to see her, upon which she was hopeful they'd be dazzled at her planning skills and kiss right then and there at a subconscious realization of their mutual love. 

Maybe she should stop watching so many romantic comedies, she thought as she sipped at her glass of sparkling water.  

She was idly searching on her phone for when lychees were in season (Philip loved her lychee and lime custards) when her phone buzzed with an arriving message.  

"Lukas is going in, the plan is on track", read the message from Tracy, accompanied with a clapping emoji. 

Rose had met Tracy, a Fashion Design major who'd interned for Teen Vogue two years back and interned this last summer at Marc Jacobs, during an outing to a local flower shop. The Simmons girl had grown up loving flowers, specifically helping in tending to her mother's beautiful blooms housed in a climate-controlled greenhouse that held everything from award winning orchids to gorgeous delphiniums. So, she loved coming home after classes to the sight of beautiful, richly smelling flowers overflowing from a vase, and she made it a habit to go buy flowers every few days. 

On one of those days at the flower shop she'd met Tracy, a sunny blond with pretty grey eyes, who worked there at the shop and was very helpful in getting her a batch of lisanthus and pale blue tweedia. Due to Rose's many trips to the florist shop for her cut blooms she had started talking more and more with Tracy, eventually them going out to lunch and coffee, exchanging numbers and now, several months later, Rose counted Tracy as one of her closest friends. 

Thank the heavens that Tracy and Philip were friends as well. They'd met through Rose and had grown close after Philip asked if she was up for being the model in a seriea of photos for a project he was turning in, she'd agreed and since then Philip and her talked, texted and shared jokes. Because of that friendship, Rose had enlisted Tracy to help Philip get dressed when he got home after his final class. Knowing him he'd scoff and say that he'd just wear one of his tees and jeans and come rushing to the restaurant. 

When Rose had planned it all out she'd called Tracy to ask the strange favor of it she could be outside the restaurant and be surveying to alert Rose whenever one of the two was approaching. "This isn't a spy movie, Rosie, you aren't Tom Cruise", Tracy had replied in an audio message but had ended complying. She was currently stationed outside the restaurant, across the street and seated in her eggshell white Kia Rio and wearing a black turtleneck and keeping Rose posted on everything. 

Rose smiled when she read the message and she pocketed her phone, quickly leaving her table and going to the front of the restaurant where she could see Lukas was just greeting the hostess at the front of the restaurant. Rushing over, she linked her arm with his when he arrived to him and smiled dazzlingly at the woman with the tight chignon, "He's with me, Alice", she beamed. 

Pulling him along and ignoring his hushed whispered protests, she motioned for him to sit when they arrived at her table. He did, albeit letting out some curse words in her direction as he took a seat. 

She'd taken it upon herself to leave Lukas an outfit prepared and elegantly draped along his bed, wanting him to look as handsome as could be. Knowing his stubborn attitude, the clothes were accompanied by a note filled with expletives and oaths to cause much damage to his existence if he didn't wear it and didn't wear it properly. Rose was glad to see that he'd complied: the wonderfully tailored and cut navy suit that she'd gifted to him last year, taking him to a shop so they could make the garment for him ("Lukas you need to have a suit, a nice, gorgeous suit, at least do it for me"), paired with that nice white shirt with small polka dots, and when she'd been pulling him along she had been quick to note he wore the belt, shoes and the watch that she'd also left out for him. 

"You look quite dashing, Lukas". 

"And youre going to look quite dead if you don't tell me what the Hell is going on, Rose". 

She scoffed, rolling her eyes a bit. "Don't be so sour, you're going to ruin the evening". 

He stared at her and gesticulated in frustration, "What evening? Rose, c'mon, explain to me what the **_Hell_** is going on". 

Rose sighed. She had wanted to draw out the mystery longer, but she supposed that telling Lukas the plan was part of the plan anyway. 

"Look, some few days ago I constructed this plan", and when he gave her a disapproving look she just smacked his hand lightly, "Oh hush, wait. It isn't that bad". 

"I don't like it when you scheme", Lukas groaned, and he smirked when he added, "And neither does Carmen and-", he hadn't managed to get anything else out since he'd received a sharp kick to the shin under the table. 

"I know that you're in love with Philip", she'd decided to just say, blurting it out. 

The look of flabbergasted surprise on his face was comical and hilarious to Rose and she could barely hide her laughter at how wide his eyes went, like saucers, and how shocked he seemed at the prospect of having feelings for Philip. He looked frozen in time, remaining like that for some few seconds before immediately breaking out into sputters and protests, hurried words, tripping over explanations and denials.   
   
"I don't have any _fucking_ idea what you're talking about Rose, and if this whole thing is about whatever weird ideas you're having then no", and he wagged his finger from left to right, face flushed and ears colored a reddish pink. 

Rose didn't pay much attention to what he said though, shrugging and staring right into his glacier blue colored eyes as she said, "You're in love with him, and he's in love with you, so I devised a plan to push you in the right direction so you'll just get together finally". 

Those words have Lukas shutting up. He seems pensive, fingertip idly fiddling with a serviette, and he seems quite deep on thought, something that, if it were a different situation, she'd say was imposible for his almond sized brain to compute. "How do you know he's in love with me?", he asked, looking up and biting at his lower lip a little, teeth worrying at the pink flesh. 

"Because everyone knows he's in love with you, everyone but you, you absolute idiot!", she laughed, smiling wide because she hopes that come tomorrow her best friends will already be an item. They better get her a nice scented candle or a set of throw pillows if they do. 

Lukas nodded a bit, and he lets out a deep breath, one that she can tell he's emitting to be able to inhale every single piece of bravery and courage that he can muster up.

"What's your plan then?". 

 

_♢♢♢_

 

Rose opened the door to her flat, humming along to a Taylor Swift song that had gotten stuck in her head from Tracey playing the 1989 album on replay for hours last night ( _of course_ Tracy loved Taylor Swift, _of course_ she did). She set her handbag down on one of the tables they have placed under an oval gilded mirror, absentmindedly combing a hand through her dark hair and wondering if she should get about an inch or two cut as she slips off her jacket.

It's then, twisting a strand of stibnite colored hair around her finger, that she realized that there was a soft wafting smell of bacon, accompanied by soft laughter too. A wide and proud smile is spread on her face as she sees the white orchids, Philip's favorite flower, that she'd handed Lukas before leaving him at the restaurant (slipping him her credit card too, murmuring "have a good dinner, get him an expensive dessert and don't you _dare_ mess this up"), and she emerges out from the entrance foyer and makes her way to the kitchen. 

Lukas is manning a pan, making scrambled eggs. Flaxen hair disheveled, looking messier than usual with one part in the back spiked up like a barley colored stalagmite. He's wearing one of his dad's old t-shirts that he wore around the house when he was juat around and being lazy, a blue one with a deer's silhouette in black on the torso, and she can see a mark on the side of his neck, a reddish blemish there that she can tell the origin of, and he's laughing loudly, head thrown back and looking fresh-faced. 

Philip is standing beside him, leaning back onto the counter, slowly sipping from a steaming mug of raspberry tea. He isn't wearing his own clothes, instead wearing a black t-shirt with a fading polka dot print that she recognizes as belonging to Lukas, and there are some discernable marks that are peeking out along the elegant line of his collarbone. Hair looking toussled and slightly messy, he too is smiling wide along the brim of his cup, wearing his glasses that are teetering at the edge of his nose.

"Hello, boys", she greets, a sly smile painting itself on her lips when the two are pulled out of whatever domestic fluffy bubble they were in and turn to look at her. 

Lukas replies first, smiling radiantly, looking happier than ever, "Hey Rosie Rose", and laughs when she sends him an unimpressed look at the name.

"Hello, Rose", Philip greets, chuckling a bit and ducking his head when she sends him a suggestive look. 

"Your plan turned out well", Lukas conceded, looking away from the eggs to smile at her, sending her her grateful look that melts into fond exasperation as she dramatically takes a bow. 

Laughing, Philip shrugged a bit, "Thanks, Simmons". 

"Any day, Shea", she grinned, reaching over and stealong away a piece of bacon from one of the two assembled plates. "I take you'll soon be the Mr. Waldenbeck walking down an aisle?", she inquired in a teasing tone between bites of the bacon. 

Scoffing, Philip argues, "As if I'd take this idiot's last name", and he playfully shoves Lukas, an action that proves futile since the blond just grabs onto Philip's arms and hauls him close into a kiss. The sight of the two, Philip'a hands going up to rest on Lukas' chest while the latter has the brunet held gently by the waist, is very heartwarming and Rose can't contain her cooing and "aww"ing at the besotted pair. 

"I'd gladly be a Shea", commented Lukas, smiling widely when Philip's cheeks color a slight red.

"Glad my plan worked, you two were being such clueless idiots", Rose scoffed, shaking her head at the two.

"Now we just have to get you and Tracy to admit you've got the hots for one another", Lukas teased, smirking when red is rushing to her cheeks. 

"You two are the truly clueless ones", added Philip, looping his arms around Lukas' neck and giving her a pointed look, "Miss Reece Witherspoon is so into you, Simmons", he added, continuing the tradition established between Tracy and him of her always getting nicknames of famous blondes with a sunny disposition while he got calls famoua brunets with an affinity for the "leather jacket and bedroom eyes" look.

Rose's face heats up a bit and she squawked indignantly, "There is absolutely nothing, nothing, at all, between Tracy and I, don't you even-"

"We've already made a plan", proclaimed Lukas, grinning. 

"We even lit one of your candles to get the ideas flowing", chimed in Philip. 

"Fuck you guys, honestly", snapped Rose, blushing, playfully pushing the pair. 

 

_♢♢♢_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this work, thank you and feel free to leave kudos and comments! :)


End file.
